JAKARTA, Indonesia — Greenpeace activists today picketed the high-profile’ IndoNuclear 2007’ conference In Jakarta, with banners proclaiming : “Nuclear
Energy = Dangerous Energy” to protest against the false and dangerous solutions being discussed at the conference to meet Indonesia’s electricity requirements. Indonesia is fast-tracking plans to build its first nuclear reactor in Jepara, on the island of Java, where an earthquake killed more than 5700 people in May 2006 and where the Mount Merapi volcano is threatening to erupt.

Greenpeace Southeast Asia CLimate and Energy campainer Nur Hidayati explains to journalists the dangers of nuclear energy during a protest held by GPSEA Indonesian activists
protest the false and dangerous solutions discussed at the "Indonuclear 2007" conference held at the Sultan Hotel in central Jakarta, Indonesia on April 2, 2007.

"Nuclear energy is an inherently dangerous option for our
country. Let's not forget that Indonesia is located in the main
volcanic chain of the planet, known as 'Pacific ring of fire' and
at the joints of main global tectonic plates, which makes it
vulnerable to earthquakes" said Energy campaigner Nur Hidayati of
Greenpeace, "It is a moral and ethical obligation for the
Indonesian government not to put the lives of millions of
Indonesian citizens and future generations at risk, not in the name
of the advancement of technology, and especially not for the short
sighted interests of a handful elites."

Besides the dangers of accidents and unresolved issues of
nuclear waste storage, building a nuclear plant involves enormous
financial and opportunity costs. A single reactor would cost
billions of dollars, putting a major claim on scarce financial
resources, thereby hindering clean, safe and far more economical
renewable technologies. The result will be more problems and less
energy.

Hardly any of the currently 435 commercial nuclear reactors in
operation world-wide were built within the planned time frames or
budgets, and competitive

electricity prices could only be achieved by price regulations,
direct and indirect subsidies to the production of nuclear power,
an extreme limitation of

liability in case of accidents, externalizing most environmental
costs of uranium mining and fuel production, and heavily
subsidizing a large part of the

back-end costs especially the costs of waste processing and
storage.

"Time and again, we are seeing the club of 'donor' countries led
by the US and Japan, cynically pushing their own commercial
interests on countries like

Indonesia under the guise of combating climate change. But the
claim of the nuclear industry that nuclear power emits low levels
of Co2, and other greenhouse gases is not based on scientifically
verifiable evidence. According to a recent report by Oxford
Research Group, nuclear plants may not generate

carbon dioxide while they operate but the other steps necessary
to produce nuclear power, including the mining of uranium and the
storing of waste, result